On the 8th of May the event dedicated to the 101st anniversary of the birth of National Leader Heydar Aliyev was held at the Institute of Folklore ANAS. The event was opened by the director of the Institute, academician Mukhtar Kazımoglu-Imanov. The academic spoke about the unparalleled services of Heydar Aliyev, the architect and founder of independent Azerbaijan, both in the first and second periods of power and drew attention to the decision of the National Leader, who paid great attention and care to the national-spiritual values and cultural heritage of our people, to approve the Azerbaijani language as the state language. He said that after Azerbaijan gained independence, Heydar Aliyev declared Azerbaijaniism as the main ideology of our national state.

Then, the director of the department Dede Gorgud, Professor Ramazan Gafarli spoke and mentioned that the Great Leader Heydar Aliyev was always very sensitive to our national-spiritual values, history, literature and supported the development of science, education and culture. The professor talked about the important steps taken by Heydar Aliyev in the direction of protecting Azerbaijani patriotic intellectual, People’s poet Bakhtiyar Vahabzade from Soviet repression.

Head of the Department of Ceremonial Folklore, Doctor of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor Agaverdi Khalil said in his speech that Heydar Aliyev always promoted the interests of his native people, whom he loved with all his being and used all the opportunities he had for the development of our republic. The Great Leader rendered invaluable services in the field of collecting, studying, publishing, introducing, protecting and promoting Azerbaijani folk activity and folklore examples.

At the end the video clip prepared by the Studio of the Institute of Folklore about the life and activities of the National Leader was shown.